Actually...

...let me quote a little from the link in my previous post. This is seriously good stuff. From "Love in the Key of Longbrake"--one of the best blogs I've read.

I think there’s a reason why Jesus said Don’t judge, or you’ll be judged. Forgive, and you’ll be forgiven. It’s terribly easy for me to judge people, especially those that I don’t know. Most of it probably comes out of pride or insecuritiesHe’s going too slow. She’s so loud. They are in everyone’s way. She’s rich and she knows it. If he would just have some self respect. Why does she dress like that? He’s always talking.

But everyone has a story. Everyone has a past. Everybody has been shaped by something. One parent. No parents. Economic situation. Rape. Culture. Orphaned. Pain. Struggle. Lack of pain and struggle. Death. Divorce. Privilege. Popularity. People are shaped by situations and the people that surround them.

Everyone has a story.

And when you know someone’s story, it changes everything, doesn’t it? Your friends who act certain ways, ways which would annoy you if they were from a stranger, are given grace because you know them. You understand them. He acts that way because of this. And she does those things because of that. You understand. Everyone who knows them understands.

It’s the strangers, though…

When we come to the realization that everyone has a story, it changes how we treat people. When you see a man on a plane being abnormally loud, you know that he is that way because of something in his past, and that thing most likely isn’t his fault. Or maybe it is. Either way, there’s a story, and because there’s a story, there is grace.

And if I went through every day with this mentality, would it change me? Would I act differently? Would people perceive me to be someone new? Someone different?

And what if an entire community embraced this idea? I think it might change the world.

I want to be part of that kind of community--how about you?

I was reminded of this yesterday when I was on a plane, coming home from Dallas. There was an older lady sitting in an aisle seat a couple of rows ahead of me. Before the plane took off, she passed out. Fell over forwards and was kind of dangling in midair. The woman sitting beside her? She turned her head the other way and ignored her. My seatmate summoned the flight attendant to check on the woman. They ended up moving her to a window seat where she had somewhere she could lean and the flight attendant asked the woman now sitting next to her to keep an eye on her--and she agreed to do so.

I couldn't see her from where I was sitting, but when we landed and I stood up, the poor lady was passed out again...doubled over, head hanging down between her legs. Her seatmate who had agreed to watch over her? She got up, grabbed her bags and marched down the aisle out of the plane--didn't even bother to try to rouse her. I was actually afraid she was dead until I saw her move her arm. The kind flight attendant helped her out of the plane and into a wheelchair--the woman was so frail, her ankles were not much bigger than my wrists--she was obviously seriously ill. The general consensus of those sitting around her was that she was drunk (possible, of course)...and therefore should be ignored and allowed to flop around like a ragdoll while she was unconscious.

What if she WAS intoxicated? What's her story? Maybe she has cancer and the treatments make her so ill, the only way she can deal with it is to medicate it with alcohol. Maybe she's so terrified of flying, it's the only way she'll get on a plane. Maybe she wasn't drunk at all and is just so sick from whatever is obviously wasting her body away to nothing, she just doesn't have the energy to act "normal" (whatever that is). Does intoxication (or anything, really) negate our responsibility to show grace?